As someone who lives in this conference, these figures reflect much more acurrately, what most of have suspected: the large expenditure of time and money on public evangelism is very poorly spent, and the allocation to "public evangelism" is still the central focus in this conference as it is in most conferences.

More than 25 years ago, my husband, who was for some time a member of the conference committee, addressed evangelism, and no sooner had the word escaped his lips than the conference president automatically heard "public evangelism" when the intent was to focus on Wawona's needs for summer camp for the youth as an excellent soul-winning effort. The term rarely stands alone in administrator's minds; but is an oxymoron to most of the members who have seen the "results" of such and perhaps that is why the church I attend rarely, if ever, participates in these conference events when they come to our town. A huge waste of money. A business that continued to put money into something with such a negligible sucess rate would soon be bankrupt. People join our church through the friendly efforts of other members. Many have stated that the first time they entered the doors, they instantly felt the warmth and hospitable atomosphere.

Did you experience that, Alex, when you visited us recently? Sure hope that you did.

The Seventh-day Adventist church can no longer out text
Jack Van Impe, The Seventh-day Adventist church can not out chart/diagram John Hagee, The Seventh-day Adventist church can not out predict Pat Robertson, The Seventh-day Adventist Church can no longer out pace Joyce Mayer, the Seventh-day Adventist church can no longer out heal Benny Hinn or out enrich any of promises the prosperity prophets.

What can it do: Why It can tell the story of Jesus--base an evagelistic series on the Book of John. The redemption of King David, and the woman taken in adultry. Now is the time in a still small voice to preach Christ and Him crucified.

Since H.M.S. Richards and Billy Graham nobody is doing it.

What can be more arresting that the fact that God became man, lived and died a man's death that we might enjoy eternity with Him. Remember it was the prophets of Baal that made the "big noise" It was Nebuchadnezar that got the cornet, the flute, the harp, the sackbut, the psaltery, and dulcimer and all knids of musick". The story of Jesus is not for the ears but for the heart, mind, and soul of man. Neon has nothing to do with salvation. If the quiet rehearsal of the book of John doesn't bring the listener to decision--no amount of histronics can be a conversion experience. Tom

P.S. What the Conference is interested is recruitment--they count heads not souls. TJZ

These figures are not surprising when one observes what is happening in many countries, especially the more prosperous ones.
There is a dominant view amongst many church members that attending church schools, marrying a SDA partner is a form of insurance for salvation.
I would suggest, tongue in check, that it would be cheaper to pay someone to be a member for five years, say $15,000 than it is to pay the cost of many public evangelism. I see a real need to address the slippage of members than it is to pull in replacements. It is much cheaper.
I suspect that the reason why effective alternatives or maintenance programs is ego-related and demands that conferences and unions place on reporting. A person is often considered more effective if they baptise six members rather than if they prevented the loss of ten members. Net gains are usually never examined.

While I am in total agreement that public evangelism is not the greatest use of our money! And I also agree that public evangelism methodology is very broken and has seemed at times more about convincing others we are right and they are wrong. I don't think that we should say that the money was totally wasted...if 900 people made Jesus Lord of their lives (hopefully they didn't just decide Adventism was "Right"), then I don't think we can put a price tag on that. I know I have friends and family that if I knew selling my house and spending all the money I had would bring them to the point they made a decision for Jesus I would happy part with that money! Wouldn't you? So it wasn't a total waste. Again with the caveat that they were converted to Jesus and not Adventism.

I just have to imagine (as off as I may be)- what if the 5 million in raised offerings were used not on ourselves (i.e. trying to make our church BIGGER), but on serving our world in practical ways? What if Matt 6:33 is true not only in the personal realm, but also the corporate? Put God's Kingdom work as primary, and He'll take care of the basic needs.

I do not follow the math in this posting. Why the 5% adjustment for deaths and the 10% adjustment for dropouts? That is already calculated in the net gain in membership of 1,647. Evidently the writer does not understand the way membership figures are arrived at.

I thought the writer was going to ask why the 5,753 accessions resulted in only 1,647 net increase in members. The answer could be that more people transfer out of the conference than into it ... or the number of people dropping out of the Church ... or the death rate might exceed the baptismal rate. Having looked at this kind of data in hundreds of situations, I would guess that the first two are most likely part of the answer.

Research has shown that the dropouts do not include very many, if any of the 5,753 new people who joined. These tend to come from people who have been around much longer.

Research has also shown that about 10 percent to 20 percent of those 5,753 accessions were likely from the minor children of church families.

I do not necessarily disagree with the writers main point, but one needs to get the facts straight in order to make a convincing argument. Otherwise it simply comes across as prejudice.

The problem with this is not so much the effectiveness of the campaigning, but the self-congratulatory backslapping. Sadly, mass evangelistic techniques often salve the ego of church leaders rather than satisfy the soul of the seekers of truth. Further, it diminishes the far more important role that should belong to the member in the pew who is much more effective in sharing the love of Jesus and bringing people to truth. In fact, I would suspect that the majority of people brought into the church were brought in one-by-one. Maybe they were children of adult members, maybe they had been attending for years. It also included "transfers" from other places - that means a large chunk could have simply moved to rapidly growing Northern California from another place.

I wish I could say differently, but this definitely seems like the Northern California Conference is "cooking the books" as it were.

One other thing - the Northern California Conference has spent money like water. They recently held a large event in Sacramento with a large orchestra and a mass choir. It was great, but they reportedly paid the sound engineer $90,000 to set up the microphones, speakers, and run the mix.

Isn't the Central California Conference, not the Northern that was being discussed?

This is subject matter has been a puzzlement and fancination to me for some time. The Adventist Church seems to be stuck in doing evangelism in ways which are definitely regessive. In 2006 my church in Brooklyn NYC conducted an evangelistic meeting costing approx. $60,000 for 6 weeks ( I still say you cannot really make an adventist in 6 weeks and have it stick. But that's another story.) At the time I suggested to the church leadership this effort was no longer an effective way to do evangelism-tent effort that is. I said that tent efforts in urban NYC in 2007 were no longer effective. I was ignored eventhough I am sure they understood this quite well. In addition they imported a minister from Florida to conduct the meetings, another mistake. The speaker had no frame of reference to his potential audience.
Final outcome:
* After 6 weeks approx. 80 were baptised. A few were almost forcebly dragged into the pool. I kid you not!
* At present of those 80 who were baptised less than 5 remain.
* The Conference President congratulates the pastor on being well on his way to reaching his churches baptismal quota for the year. This was said under the open air tent so all the world could hear. Amazing!!

Is the leadership brain dead or just completely inept? There's got to be a better way. I am totally convinced that the Adventist church is addicted to a numbers game. This is shameful.
P.S. I forgot to say the tent was pitched in the church parking lot right next to the church. If this were not so sad I could bust a gut laughing.

The same style as 100 years ago: tent and sawdust trail--and in NY City? Asinine!

This CANNOT happen if enough members pay their tithe to the LOCAL storehouse (read church) and the funds are spent by the local church on what it deems best. Who knows the people and the city better than those who live there? The old saying: "An expert is someone from out of town" is so apt for this.

As long as ministers have to show a certain number of baptisms each year, that is not too difficult, especially when there's no retention tally taken. It's not too hard to get somebody in the tank, when that's all that's required.

More than 40 years ago the VOP (then the younger Richards) had a "revival" here. My son, then a grade-schooler at the church school was told one Friday morning that he was going to be baptized that evening (in a dough-boy pool at some fairground building). He had never attended a single meeting, nor had some of his classmates who were also "rounded up" for baptism. One of the mothers absolutely refused to be coerced into such a scheme. She, rightfully, said it should be his personal decision, not the needs of the crusade or local pastor who benefited.

Are those things still being done? I fear they still are.

Failure of retaining new members can be blamed on the existing church members. They were not loving enough. Maybe they didn't uphold the standards. Maybe they let the new members know that there were scandals in the church, or any other of a long list of failures.

Elaine’s suggestion of storing in the local storehouse could be a consideration. An even easier plan is when such crusades are suggested, is to just say no. An ever increasing number of people just need to step out and say they choose not to be involved in crusades if it is how they feel. It is that simple.

We can talk with both our feet and pocketbook.

Monte,
I agree the math is confusing. So I tried to express myself more clearly. If you substitute these last two paragraphs for the ones I originally wrote, clarity will be served. Andy

Now for the payoff. “5,753 members were added to the CCC in the last three years through baptism, profession of faith and transfers. Membership at the end of 2006 stood at 32,701, up from 31,054 in 2003. In other words, membership increased by 1,647. Why only 1,647? Why did 4,106 people leave the church between 2003 and 2006? (No number is given for membership deaths, so none is assumed.) This number assumes only that transfers in and out of the conference balance out, and that the new members “evangelized” include children attending Adventist schools in the conference.

When one considers the outcome of the CCC's efforts, the Adventist Church’s traditional methods of evangelism must be considered pointless and a huge waste of money and time. Two questions are immediately obvious. Why did 12% of the 2003 membership "leave" the church? "Why are Adventist evangelistic efforts so ineffectual? These questions need to be addressed by North American, union, conference and local leadership, ASAP!

Why don't we add and retain people through our traditional methods?

How about trying to get people in a time pressed society to committ five nights per week for three to six weeks of meetings? How about listening to a 45 minute message in NYC from one of our major evangelists about the evils of jewlery, while people in the city are dealing with addictions, alienation and loneliness, crushing financial and emotional stresses, and no clear sense of their purpose in life? (I wanted to get up and scream!) How about evangelism being viewed solely as an event run and done by slick professionals with public speaking gifts, rather than being part of the DNA of a caring, compassionate community of Christ followers that reaches out 24/7 to meet hurting people at their point of need? How about spending so much time on Adventist distinctives in such crusades, that the good news of Jesus gets lost in the sauce as one point equal to the other 27? How about local churches with no clear follow up structure to assimilate new members into the life, mission and purpose of the local church, thus leaving the backdoor wide-open? How about using terms like crusade, that can be an instant turn-off to some from non-christian backgrounds? How about sharing our message in a language and with a substance that is increasingly incomprehensible to an increasingly post-christian audience(at least in the northeast)?

Until we change our entire view of evangelism from a packaged event to a process of building relationships, until, through visionary leadership, we put the appropriate structures in place in every local congregation that will help foster real long -term spiritual growth rather than simply looking for quick numerical addition, until we get serious about translating the message into a language and tongue that people can understand because it meets them where they live, until we learn how to listen to the questions people are asking, rather than providing answers they are not yet seeking, I fear that we will continue in this cycle of mediocrity, ineffectiveness, and fiscal waste that seems to characterize our efforts here in North America.

Will somebody do the math and furnish the cost of each single member addition? Isn't that what the whole business of the church is about: growing numbers?

Dear Fellow Adventists,

The fact that you are most likely an Adventist on this blog means you have already qualified for an AARP card and magazine about 3 years ago. The fact that you even know how to blog means your are at least as smart as a fifth grader and all of our pastors about the Internet. And, the fact that all the comments sound intelligent means that you will appreciate what I am about to share.

Any membership organization requires growth to maintain and prosper. That potential target population is usually younger than the average age of the organization as a whole. Even a retirement club needs new members which are most likely younger than the ones that just died.

I am of the firm opinion that a pastor can become great pastor but pastors like professors, policemen and firemen are not well equipped to run great businesses and only a few run great churches which are usually nondenominational. Our Adventist system is run by a circle of Pastors very familiar with Adventist theological principles. They know nothing about FaceBook, Blogger, Linken, WEB2.0, or text messaging. Most do not even answer their cell phones much less use speed dial. The young adults and young families we are trying to attract know the Internet like the pastors know the Bible. What would you think if you were a non-Adventist mother looking a Christian school for your children on the Conference website? http://ccc.adventist.org/ Would you be interested to continue exploring the website further? Look at what we could do. http://www.clovisadventist.org/article.php?id=2

Our public presence on the web at the CCC (which is a standing brochure and statement to the entire world of who we are) is completely un-evangelistic to our faith. The online presentation and the very poor management of the "dynamic" content make us look idiosyncratic. For example, the banner at the top of every CCC web page gives the appearance we are strange little aliens chasing Haley's Comet. http://ccc.adventist.org/educ/edstaff.html (ps. try and find the resources referenced on this same page) Relevant data and/or information is often dated (see list of baptisms and other data), sometimes incorrect (see many of the broken links to our churches) or not found. What a mixed signal we have been sending our technically savvy non-Adventist neighbors (70% plus of Americans) over the last several years. http://www.fresnochristian.com/#

Our evangelistic efforts are costly momentary events with little residual effect. We leave little or nothing tangible behind as a testimony of our caring for those souls who are trying to reach God (with the exception of Bible study and Adventist indoctrination to the handful we netted). We build no rest homes; we donate no real quantity of food to the local poor; we provide no services to our fellow men, except at the lowest level of effort. Only 7% of Seventh-day Adventist churches in the U.S.report that they are involved in community organizing projects or advocacy on social issues in the community. http://cornerstonelive.org/min.htm#feed Within the entire Pacific Union Conference we have one rest home and no other public services except for hospitals by Adventist HealthNet (and they do not even associate with the Conference at all).

The CCC office only works four days a week for five days pay and to boot everyone is on flextime. You can't even run a McDonalds on uncontrolled flextime, so how does that work? Cindy Paige, the CCC receptionist has no idea who is in and who is out. No one and I mean no one checks in or checks out with her ever. In my business, an employee would be fired for that; my staff even has to tell her when they will be back. But take a look at our total system. Which church can you call on a Friday or how about Tuesday after 3:30pm? I know I can call Peoples Church in Fresno at almost anytime, GL Johnson knew it was important to connect with the lost sheep. How can a non-Adventist seeking a Sabbath keeping church find us if we are a big secret? We don't even answer the phone call of a lost soul on Sabbath but we will count the money, oops.

If you are not a pastor (more specifically an in-crowd pastor); you will not be part of the inner circle. The CC Conference is a closed loop system. That is contradictory to Ellen White and her references to people of enterprise being involved.

Please do not misunderstand me, most people at the CCC work hard and really care but it is not a very business efficient place. But that is our fault as Adventists and not just the fault of those who work at the Conference. Let me explain further. Institutional churches (which includes us) like other non-profits are supported by donor dollars. However there is a significance difference, institutional churches have a guaranteed income stream regardless of performance or efficiency because of the faithfulness of tithing. This pretty much negates checks and balances by knowledgeable business-minded donors as in other non-profit organizations which heavily depend on philanthropic giving from corporate related sponsors. Also institutional churches have complex governance with masks inefficiencies of the operation from congregational view unlike non-denominational (stand-a-lone) churches. The system (our system) does not have transparency to provide business guidance. Consequently, several Adventists that I know, with the ability to give, use their (God’s) money elsewhere because of the lack of perceived business confidence in our institution.

Evangelism. Adventist evangelism is marketed with 1950's "B rated" horror movie posters http://www.mostamazingprophecies.com/ and handouts that use shock techniques in an attempt to drive people our doctrine. It is embarrassing for me to hand out such bizarre literature to my friends. We portray ourselves as the secret code crackers having the inside track to the Da Vinci code while constantly bombarding the Catholic Church. In doing so, we attract a select few and we leave large numbers of good people behind. Believing in the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath and End-Times is not odd; we just use strange ways of showing our beliefs, which makes us appear like a cult to many rational people.

The problem with over zealous indoctrination is that it may pollute the pure message of the Messenger. People turn away from faiths simply by discovering the irrationality of the presentation which has nothing to do with the original teachings. As a result the original message can be ignored, forgotten or over shadowed. Adventists have not succeeded well in communicating what we’re ‘for;’ we’ve been better at emphasizing what we’re ‘against.’ Not a good strategy

Being on 3ABN and producing CDs seem to be the pinnacle of pastoral efforts as compared to being on local TV or radio discussing community events as it relates to the Adventist Church here in Fresno or Clovis. Church members may feel good seeing their pastor on the Hope Channel but it has little effect on local evangelism. None of our leaders are know to the general public although the community knows many of the other Christian Pastors of other denominations and this is our Conference town.

Another point, we have only three churches north of the center part of Fresno and no churches in 4 major zip codes which are areas of growth to the north. In the same 4 zip code areas there are 200 plus Christian organizations advertised on the Internet. Who is going to travel to some unknown part of town to try and find an Adventist church hidden in some old apartment complex area off the main drag in the center of gangland Fresno? And just FYI, there is only one church in Fresno that does not need painting and that is a triple-wide office trailer that does not answer its phone (and as no answering machine). What does the condition of our buildings said about our confidence in our organization. Are these reasonable examples of God's house?

And we will leave the subject of Adventist education for another day.

Gee, I have no idea why we are not growing and why we spend so much money on evangelism? Obviously, it has nothing to do with philosophy, strategy, planning, implementation and accountability. Those must not be perquisites for Evangelism 101.

But having just said that, again I want to say we have some amazingly hard working individuals at the Conference doing some great things, it is just the whole strategy... stop, stop. If you are in this Conference what is your understanding of our congregational or Conference strategy for the next five years? If you don't know then you are part of the problem also. This is a great faith with some important things to do. Our own silence as Adventist laymen speaks loudly to some of the reasons for our lack of congregational growth.

In the early 1900s, we were told that "The Seventh-day Adventist denomination is a great reform movement, the greatest the world has ever known. And the church is called to set before the world a system of schools, institutions and organizations of self-governing Christians, such as this world has never before seen."

It sounds like a good idea to me, lets get it done.

blessings to all,
Tom Krazan
Central California
tomkrazan@gmail.com

So those "hard-working" individuals work 4 days for 5 days pay? Sounds pretty hard to me!

Is your tongue not planted securely in your cheek when, after all the info about the SDA church in the Central Conference, and especially Fresno, you add a very short note declaring " If you are in this Conference what is your understanding of our congregational or Conference strategy for the next five years? If you don't know then you are part of the problem also."

You are pointing out a deficiency in the Conference, NOT the members. When does a successful business rely on customers or prospective customers to come calling to find out what strategies for selling are being discussed? It's called Marketing 101. It is entirely up to the Conference to get its message (whatever it is) to the members, NOT the other way around.

Could that possibly be why the members are quite uninterested in what goes on at Willow & Ashlan?" If the office there shut its doors, how long would it take the members to even notice? Do the separate churches only operate at the permission and discretion of the local headquarters? Only the pastors who get their paychecks would even notice. Makes congregationalism more attractive all the time. With such an attitude, there are far more benefits to the church and its members to be run like the other churches here in Fresno that were mentioned. They are well-known for their community services, unlike SDAs, and are heavily involved in their own city. We would do well to emulate them.

Dear Sisters and Bothers in Christ,

I my comments and observations are frank and blunt. But this is also our church. It is not them against us. Unfortunately, it is more us against us.

With all our faults, our mission is the same. To serve Christ to the highest and best capacity that we can. And within the church, to do that with the most amount of group cooperation. The devil would love to divide and concur the Adventist faith and all other Christian faiths.

Lets us not play into his hands as we bluntly adjust the minor things in life to accomplish the major things of salvation.

your brother in Christ,
Tom Krazan
Central California
tomkrazan@gmail.com

Tom, you appear to be talking out of both sides of your mouth. In your previous comments you cited all the inadequacies and failures of the conference and now it is almost an apology for what you said and that it is really all our fault--the conference is blameless. Let me guess why the change of heart.

The theologically incestuous situation at the one ministerial seminary precludes producing anything other than theological clones: All speak the same language of doctrinal beliefs. No instructor who values who paycheck would dare question a fundamental belief and challenge the critial thinking of students to devise alternate scriptural interpretations (of which there are many, evidenced by the hundreds of different denominations).

Until we can realize that new ideas and fresh, innovative thinking and designs should be tried, we will continue to do the "same old things" expecting different results: an insane perspective.

From one Tom to another:

To paraphrase an E.G. White statement: "As poor, feeble, and inept as the church is, it is still the object of God supreme regard." We all took that as meaning the SDA Church.

Having lived long enough to be a member of AARP I know know that it applies to all corporate church bodies.

The problem is the CCC is our present target not because it is poor and feeble, but because it declares itself "rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing."

I have had the priviledge to be a guest in the Chancellor of the University of Georgia's private office and well as in the office of the President of the ccc private office. The University System of Georgia has an annual budget of billions and has 33 units with over half a million students. Yet the Chancellor's private office would come in a distant third to the office of the President of the CCC. Yet at best the President of the CCC would need only a mail drop and a good excecutive sec. to handle the correspondence since the President is always on the road.

By the way It think four days is a great idea. It certainly guards the edges of the Sabbath. Tom

Tom Z.,in regards to the "poor and feeble" quote, I believe the author that EGW lifted that statement from was in fact applying it to the whole of Christianity.

What is tragic here is the dollar amounts being talked about. Central California is considered a great success for raising a bit over $150 per member to fund evangelism? I dropped a few dollars at Soquel for evangelism, but I am not a member of CCC and could not get too excited about their vision.

What I saw at Soquel this summer was a handful of parties donating the largest sums of money to the CCC evangelism pot. I do not wish to discount personal sacrifices that were made - there were many - but the CCC efforts at evangelism are funded a great deal by cash looking for a cause. Cash looking for a cause exists primarily in mature business accounts, some brokerage accounts and a few successful retirement funds.

What would happen to the budget if the evangelism plan could capture the imagination of a wide segment of the church. We would not be talking budget. I've spent a lot of time, energy, thought looking for, participating in new ways to effectively reach people in a semi-public way. But the diversity of humanity thwarts the vision. Public evangelism seeks to address common universal needs. It looks at the generalities, the demographics, the thinking of the new generations. But the thought, pains, needs of humans are ultimately deeply personal and deeply individual.

Successful stories of finding Christ are often personal tales of need, involving caring people who were in the right place at the right time to fill the need. Personally reaching people, relating to people and meeting peoples needs, through the power of Christ, is the end goal. Meeting peoples needs is not a hook to Christ. Finding Christ or finding "Church" to fill the need may be a side-effect of the relationship. It may never happen but it does not destroy the relationship. There is no hook. "Church" may never be involved, because the personal relationships ARE church. You may show them Christ indefinitely and imperfectly, for they may never find Christ themselves. When they do find Christ, they may never find "Church." Many people don't feel the need or want to do the "group." For these building "group" is a huge challenge and can be a great deal different than what we understand to be "church." Personally I find these realizations the ultimate challenge to my faith. Staying in touch, in relationship, with an uncomfortable diversity of friends requires Christ. I'm not good at it. It is not my nature. I fail constantly. I'm worse at it than most. It is not this introvert's thing.

Public evangelism usually only provides opportunity for a small demographic to be reached in a certain way. Lack of diversity in approach to growing groups leads to a lack of diversity in the group itself which in turn tragically feeds back to the original approach to growing (Attitude: This approach worked for me!) . When individuals within the church accept (comfort may be too much to ask) diversity, it may then begin to meet the needs of a diverse world.

Dick

I thought so but didn't take the time to confirm it. I knew the readers would do my research for me in this case. Tom